


I've Cried A Million Tears (I've Caused A Million More)

by mllelouise



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst with a Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Roadie Derek Hale, Rock Star Stiles Stilinski, the drug and alcohol use are in Stiles' past
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-28
Updated: 2016-06-28
Packaged: 2018-07-18 18:58:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7326466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mllelouise/pseuds/mllelouise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles is a rock star and Derek is the roadie he's in love with. But the drugs and the alcohol are tearing them apart. It gets ugly, before it can start getting better.</p><p>-</p><p>The beginning of this story is in <a href="http://twinkwolf.tumblr.com">twinkwolf</a>'s tags, read them first on <a href="http://theladyandthewolves.tumblr.com/post/146602257473/stilesisderekslittlespoon-can-we-stop-and">this beautiful gifset</a> that I found months ago, and inspired me to write the fix it part.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I've Cried A Million Tears (I've Caused A Million More)

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Brandon Flowers, "Jacksonville".
> 
> Enourmous thanks to my beta reader [La Duchesse d'Erat](http://archiveofourown.org/users/laduchessederat), any remaining mistakes are mine.
> 
> [[read it on tumblr]](http://theladyandthewolves.tumblr.com/post/146602257473/stilesisderekslittlespoon-can-we-stop-and)

Derek leaves and everything goes to shit. Worse shit than that time the host said his name by mistake and for a whole twenty seconds he thought he’d won a Grammy before being metaphorically slapped in the face as the loser he was. Which is saying something.

More drugs. More alcohol. More random backstage encounters. Stiles’ days start looking like his nights until it’s all just one giant stack of ugly hours piling up and numbing his brain. It doesn’t even stop him from thinking about Derek and everything he doesn’t deserve, but Stiles still tries harder each day, each night.  
More drugs. More alcohol. More strangers and bathroom fucks.

There’s no reason left for Stiles’ life to change and not just spiral down until he dies at 27, leaving people crying for a day or two, his record company selling tribute song as long as they can cash on his name, people forget him instantly. He’ll just have to accept it. There’s no happy ending waiting for him, no bright future.

Until one day there is.

-

From backstage Stiles can hear the crowd out there screaming his name but he can’t find the will to stand up from the couch. Maybe this is the day it ends, the night he can’t even be a singer anymore.  
In front of him amongst the newspapers covering the coffee table, his own face is staring back at him next to a title in red letters, his drunk high self trying to avoid the paparazzi outside a club.

What happened to America’s Sweetheart Stiles Stilinski? it says.

There’s another picture under the title, he’s smiling and young, just won his first music contest and everything felt possible. He was happy back then. Life was simple. His dreams were coming true.

Stiles realizes his life is only nightmares now and that easy happiness he once had is gone, merely a memory coming back and clashing against all of his regrets, overwhelming, cluttering his throat, cutting his breath.

What happened, they ask.  
What happened, other than losing his mom way too soon, becoming a star way too fast, drifting away from the people and the places that kept his heart beating, way too far.

People that he might never see again. Places where he might no longer be welcome.

Stiles’ life has been a serie of good lucks and poor choices leading him to be the disaster he is now, leading him to lose Derek and the last pinch of balance that was holding his life together, yet if he wouldn’t trade all of this for a boring suburb life because he loves his life. The band, the songs, the fans, the tours. Despite the darkness, he still loves his life.

It’s himself he doesn’t like anymore.

Lucky for him, he now realizes, himself is the one part he has the power to change.

-

It takes 6 months for Stiles to start getting his shit together after deciding to cancel the tour that night, refusing interviews and disappearing completely from the public face of the Earth. He doesn’t explain, let his agent deal with the mess, thinking it can’t be worse than the mess he’s been so far.

Months for his body to start healing slowly and his mind bit by bit, his entire self looking less like a discarded puzzle with every step he takes toward recovery, away in the quiet of a rehab center in the middle of nowhere.

His heart though, is still in pieces.

There are changes amongst the people surrounding him. Some he never sees again, with zero regret. Some who come back. Some he realizes were always there and will always be.

Then there’s Derek. Stiles hasn’t talked to him in those past 6 months. Craved to. But never dared to.

But now it’s part of his get better program, so he has no excuse. He packs a bag for the road and leaves one morning, anxiety and enthusiastic hope fighting like wolves and butterflies in his ribcage.

-

It wasn’t easy to find Derek without asking around too much, without letting people know he’s looking for him and risking anyone to sell the info to the tabloids, still very eager to publish any juicy info on the former rock star turned anonymous.

The text comes in on a monday night, when Stiles isn’t expecting it anymore. Derek’s new address. Stiles forgets how to breathe for a second, hand shaking as he puts down his phone. This is it. He has enough time on his hands and the direction to lead him, but his courage seems eager to flee far far away.

He resists though, knows he needs to do this, to go see Derek, one last time.

-

Turns out Derek lives close by, works in a bar doing sound check on concert nights. That’s where Stiles meets him in the middle of the afternoon, for the first time in what seems like forever and Derek can’t hide his surprise as Stiles enters the place.

“You look good,” Stiles says, his heart racing and his rehearsed speech forgotten the second he opens his mouth. The sight of Derek feels good, happy memories coming to his mind. Bad memories too, clouding the room and clutching his heart. The anger of the last time they’d spoken, the terrible things they both said, it’s all rushing back; but Derek’s face now is calm and Stiles tries to keep all his mixed feelings in check before speaking again.

The desire to touch Derek is still there, probably never really left and Stiles wants to feel his skin under his hands like he used to, feel the warmth of Derek’s body under his but those days are gone for good and he knows it’s for the best.  
Still, he freaking misses touching Derek.

“You look better,” Derek answers, a very small smile filtering through what looks like a forced poker face.

The echo of Derek’s voice is warm and soft in Stiles’ ear, just like it used to be, taking him aback. 

The silence that follows is awkward and Stiles regrets not keeping the cards he prepared his speech on. He takes a deep breath and the words come back little by little, his mouth and mind finally cooperating.

“I have some things I’d like to say to you, if you’re okay with that,” Stiles starts. “I’ll leave if you don’t.”  
He’s not supposed to leave according to the program, he has to go through his speech but forcing Derek, or anyone to hear him out seems like adding insult to injury.  
But Derek nods and leads them to a table in the back. “I’ll listen,” he says, and now Stiles feels more nervous than before.

“I held on to you like a lifeline,” Stiles starts, “used you instead of facing my problems and I realize now how hurtful to you I’ve been. There was something with you that was mesmerizing and I didn’t want to resist, didn’t want to stop and think about what I was doing. I got you caught between me and my demons, let you be some casualty in my fight.” 

Derek doesn’t interrupt and Stiles is relieved because though it feels good to finally face Derek and admit his mistakes, Stiles’ courage is not getting stronger by the minute as he reaches the moment Derek is probably gonna push him away politely. 

Standing here, Stiles feels the guilt weighing heavy on his chest and the room is so close from spinning but he takes a deep breath, focusing on what he came to say, not on the fact that he doesn’t want to leave, never wants to leave Derek again, ever, because that would open the door to a panic attack.  
Breathe in. Breathe out. Speak. Easy, right?

“Everything about you made me fall in love with you,” Stiles says, barely hearing his own words over the loud pounding of his heart, “but I turned it into a very ugly thing and I’m sorry. For everything.”

-

Surprisingly Derek doesn’t throw Stiles out of the bar, doesn’t tell him to shove his excuses where the sun won’t shine. He offers him coffee and lets him talk even more, about what happened those past months. He doesn’t say much about himself but Stiles understands why Derek would feel reluctant to share. Trust between them has been broken long ago.

When Stiles finally leaves, Derek doesn’t tell him to never come back again.

-

Stiles starts coming back now and then. Over the weeks, it’s like they’re meeting for the first time again, yet Stiles feels like what connected them never truly disappeared. 

Stiles’ days are full of relearning how to function and Stiles and Derek’s days together are made of relearning each other. Talking and smiling and sharing milkshakes at that new spot in town.

“I missed you,” Stiles wants to say every time they see each other, keeping it to himself for fear of scaring Derek with too many feelings. He’s not sure of many things these days but one thing he knows, he wants Derek in his life, even more as he doesn’t need him to be complete, doesn’t need him for love or sex. He wants Derek as his friend, forever if Derek will have him.

-

“You should come on Friday,” Derek says as Stiles puts down his guitar, “it’s open mic night.”  
Stiles shrugs. Sure he’s started writing again and he just sang a few lines to Derek and it felt good, but everyone close to him has told him at one point that a radical change of life was his only healthy choice, and it’s worked so far. No more guitar. No more stage. No more bad habits. He’s already left that path a bit, sharing this draft of a song with Derek, not putting down his pen when his muse came back with new words, new melodies a few days before.  
Everyone would tell him to stop. Everyone but Derek, who’s been smiling all along as Stiles let his music fill the room.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” Stiles says.  
“You, or people?”  
Stiles shrugs again. “It doesn’t matter, it’s probably for the best. I know what singing brings me and it’s not good.”  
It stings, thinking about the happy moments he’s missing, not performing. The joy it used to bring him. But it really is for the best, it’d only come with bad decisions again.  
“You don’t trust yourself,” Derek says and it could sound like a lecture or something but Stiles hears the friendly tone and the genuine concern in Derek’s words. “You think you’ll make bad choices again and you forget you’re not the same person you were a year ago, ten years ago.”  
Stiles remembers how Derek always seemed to read him right, to understand Stiles behind the mask he’d built to hide from life and from himself. He’s surprised though, that Derek speaks like he still believes in him, after all he’s done that hurt him.  
“But what if it’s too much?”

Derek stays silent for a while. “All I know Stiles is that your face still lightens up when you sing. More than it ever did actually. Just you and your guitar, you look... happy. But maybe you don’t need a stage I don’t know. I’m sorry, it’s not my place to say.”  
Stiles sighs and closes his eyes. He can so easily picture himself with a guitar in hand, feeling good as he sings for Derek, for his dad and maybe his friends back home but a stage? The imaginary stage in his mind never stays small, it grows and grows and explodes into the mess he used to be.  
“You’re the only one who knows what you want, how you want your life to be, Stiles and you have all the time in the world to decide,” Derek adds, smiling.

-

It takes 8 more open mic nights before Stiles feels comfortable enough to think about performing. He’s finished writing his first song and has a notebook full of a dozen new ideas and he can feel his skin buzzing when his fingers touch the pen and the guitar and he’s decided not to fight it anymore. The good parts of his old life come back, small waves of bliss, no sign of bad part anywhere near. He’s ready to try.

Stiles keeps it a secret from Derek in case he chickens out, but he doesn’t. He enters the bar, taking in the people at the tables and the singer already on stage. He’s nervous, the way he’s always been nervous before a gig. What if his voice fails him? What if he can’t remember how to move his fingers? What if the song is actually terrible? What if they don’t like it? What if Derek was wrong about starting over?

He ignores the doubts in his head, the way he learned to, a little bit better with each concert experience. He ignores his shaky hands. 

He takes the last few steps toward the stage to sit in front of the small crowd, eyes and mind focused on his guitar, on the mic, on nothing past the mic. 

On performing just for himself. 

_Me and my heart and a bus full of friends  
Me and a bus and too many champagne_

The first words come out raspy from his throat but after that, it’s like riding a bike and forgetting all the times you fell.

_My heart left to rot on the dirty old floor  
of a dirty dîner where no one eats no more_

Maybe he shouldn’t have chosen this song to share first. It’s probably too personal. Too dark.

_And i’m traveling  
alone_

It’s sad, sadder than Stiles realized when he wrote it, getting everything out of his system, but he looks at the people sitting in front of him and they seem to care, to listen.

_And i’m living  
but gone_

Stiles feels something in his chest soften as he locks eyes with Derek standing behind the sound check panel, smiling and biting his lip. Stiles is singing for Derek, like it’s just the two of them, the way it was those past months.

_Miles away from you  
Miles away from me_

The song ends and the crowd cheers and Stiles can even see some tears on their faces. It feels like singing for the first time and for the millionth time too. It feels good and a voice inside him says, maybe he can do this. One more time. Differently.

-

“I missed this,” Stiles says standing next to Derek while the next singer goes on stage.  
Derek smiles. “It showed,” he says. “You’re staying? I can’t leave right now,” he waves toward the stage, “but we could talk later?”

Stiles nods. He missed that too, talking after a show, he knows now he missed that more than the artificial bliss of drugs and alcohol and sex. Not that he doesn’t miss the sex with Derek, if he’s being honest. But that is oddly not the part of Derek he missed the most in all his mess.

He sits at the bar for the rest of the evening, listening to musicians, watching Derek work, fingers flying on the console, mind focused on making everybody’s night the best they have. It’s as mesmerizing as it was and Stiles’ heart gets heavy remembering every step of how he fell in love with the guy. How it can never happen again.

-

Derek lives across the street and that’s where they head to after he’s done working. They leave behind people still partying and Stiles is happy finding himself alone with Derek, in the quiet of his apartment.

“You were great tonight,” Derek says, opening the door and turning to face Stiles. “They loved you. The audience, I mean, it was-” Stiles can feel Derek’s breath on his skin, hot and intoxicating and it’s not a good idea to stand so close to one another but he can’t move.

Derek is the one to take a step back, takes his jacket off. “Tea?” he asks, already walking toward the kitchen.  
Stiles clears his throat. “Yes, yes tea is perfect. And thank you, it means a lot, what you think.”

Derek doesn’t answer that, but the silence is welcome after a night full of noise.

Stiles needs to find something to talk about though, to stop his mind from only thinking about kissing Derek. His skin is buzzing with excitement and happiness, and it’s been a long time since things were simple but he’s not gonna jeopardize this for just- he sighs, looking at Derek behind the kitchen counter- for just one kiss.

“It felt right,” Stiles says, “up on that stage, the small audience, the new songs, you.” It felt perfect, he thinks. “I’d be happy with just that forever,” he adds as Derek holds him a mug.

Their fingers brush and it’s like electricity through his entire body. He puts the mug down and so does Derek, his free hand already reaching for Stiles’ neck, pulling him close before meeting Stiles’ lips with his mouth.

It’s familiar and new at the same time, it’s warm and everything Stiles wants but didn’t think possible anymore. Derek’s lips are soft while his hand is firm on Stiles’ hip.

Stiles moans as he feels Derek’s tongue on his own and Derek’s eyes jolt wide open before he breaks the kiss and let go of Stiles’ neck and hip and everything.  
“Sorry,” Derek mumbles, mistaking the moan for a plea to stop, “sorry I- shit. Of course you don’t want to go back to that, I just. Shit,” Derek repeats, backing away from Stiles, standing as far as possible in the opposite corner of the room.

“You- Do you- Ugh,” Stiles sighs. “Derek, you still want us? After everything?” He gathers the courage to finally ask, finally face the truth, a hint of hope like a light switched on in his chest.  
“No,” he says and Stiles feels his heart sink, “I mean yes I want us, but I don’t still want us, the ones we were back then, Stiles, I want who we’ve become, who you’ve become. I-” Derek hesitates and takes a deep breath, “I love you as you are right now, with your past and your present, but I’m not clinging to the memory of you, or me.”

Stiles can’t choose the right words to answer this I love you, they all seem to be stuck in his throat anyway and Derek’s face falls as Stiles stays silent.  
“I’m sorry Stiles, I shouldn’t have put this on your shoulders, I thought maybe, we could have a chance but-  
“Yes,” Stiles finally says and it sounds more like shouting. “Yes,” he repeats more softly,” I want to give us another chance. The new us, I like them,” he smiles, taking a few steps toward Derek and letting him close the remaining distance between them, until Stiles can grab Derek’s hand and squeeze.  
“I’m so scared I’ll fuck it up again though,” he whispers, “hurt you again.”  
Derek puts a hand on Stiles’ cheek, and the warmth brings him some instant comfort. “We have no way to know for sure what’s gonna happen, Stiles, we can only decide to take the leap or not, and do our best, together.”  
Stiles smiles. “You’re still the wisest of us two,” he says.  
“Yep,” Derek giggles.  
“Did I mention I love you too?”  
“Hmm don’t think so,” Derek grins and kisses Stiles on the nose.  
“Well I do, I love you Derek, that’s the one thing I’m sure of right now,” he says, feeling a weigh leaving his chest, and a bright and light hope replacing it.

Stiles catches Derek’s lips with his mouth, like a statement to never forget the hard days they’ve been through and a promise to make the best of the days ahead of them.


End file.
